Dr. Patlee Creary is a lived experience researcher and storyteller. She is a writer, highly-rated blogger, storyteller, trauma-sensitive group facilitator and graduate of the University of the West Indies, Mona and the University of Manitoba.

Patlee was born in Jamaica and served as a military officer in the Jamaica Defence Force. She uses her international relations, governance, risk management, and adult education background to inform her approach to community building and conflict transformation. She completed her doctoral degree in peace and conflict studies in 2018. She is also a trained MBSR facilitator and mental health first aid practitioner. 

Patlee's doctoral dissertation focused on the use of stories in conflict transformation. Through extensive interviews with Canadian and Jamaican soldiers who were deployed on various international peacebuilding missions, she used lived experience and narrative inquiry methods to explore how each soldier's role, identity, and peace support actions were helped or hindered by their self-narrative.

Today, she uses her lived experience, storytelling, peacebuilding research, and the latest data on mental and social health, workplace well-being, and community development to connect people to purpose and community through innovative explorations of mindfulness, storytelling, and conflict transformation. 

In 2021, Patlee founded Reyou, a social enterprise that provides online and in-person training and resourcing to help individuals, communities, and groups increase their mental well-being and stress resilience. Through Reyou, Patlee provides keynotes, presentations, and workshops on social impact, diversity and belonging, mental well-being, and resilience. 

Her workshops and keynotes suit association and company-wide meetings, leadership retreats, internal board and team meetings, staff and volunteer personal development, and social resettlement programs. Her work ranges from large-scale projects that require collaboration and co-facilitation to small group workshops and one-on-one training and support. 

Patlee is a member of the Manitoba Writers Guild and the Canadian Community Economic Development Network. She currently resides in Pinawa, Manitoba, with her husband and two daughters.

Background

Dr. Patlee Creary is the author of several academic and non-academic articles and book chapters on gender, youth, and military roles and identities in peacebuilding and conflict transformation. She founded the Reyou, an enterprise designed to change how individuals, communities, and workplaces experience and deliver conflict transformation through mental well-being support. Patlee is a workplace mindfulness facilitator who is trained and certified in mental health first aid, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), adult education, and trauma-sensitive group facilitation. Patlee is noted for her work with non-profits and social support groups that seek to improve capacity, confidence, and resilience among clients with lived experiences of disruption and major transition. You can find examples of her work in interviews and media featured here.